The present invention generally relates to the field of antennas, and more particularly to an omni-directional antenna having a very wide bandwidth.
Ocean going ships have many different types of radio frequency (RF) communication needs, such as ship-to-ship communications, ship-to-air communications, and ship-to-land communications. Generally, a different frequency band is used for each type of RF communications application. Because antennas are essential elements of RF communication systems, there are practically just as many antennas as there are types of communications systems on board a ship because each antenna is designed for a specific frequency band.
Since the topside region of a ship is limited, it typically may be cluttered with many antennas, making expansion of a ship's RF communications capabilities difficult. Elimination of some or most of the antennas would be desirable in order to facilitate increased shipboard RF communication capabilities.
The most commonly used antenna configuration is the dipole antenna. Its popularity is due to its simplicity of design and its omnidirectional coverage. However, the dipole antenna has a limited bandwidth which is partly due to its impedance mismatch at wider bandwidths.
It may therefore be appreciated that a need exists for an omni-directional antenna having wide bandwidth characteristics.